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Mississippians used the ballot-initiative process to get medical-marijuana legalization on the ballot in 2020, but the Mississippi Supreme Court blocked it. Mississippi Votes Executive Director Arekia Bennett plans to work alongside allies and partners to ensure that the State fully restores the ballot-initiative process for the citizens of our Magnolia State.
A group of Mississippi plaintiffs hoping to revive Mississippi’s citizen-led ballot initiative process took their case to federal court today.
With immense public pressure—and scorn—following the decision to scrap a wildly successful ballot initiative and the entire process alongside it, it seems likely that Mississippians will have access to some form of initiative and referendum process by the end of next year. But both the reasons for the initiative’s return in the 1990s and the explanation for the Legislature’s failure to adapt the process after the state lost its fifth district remain a subject of debate.
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